Success Story with Scott D. Clary

Tobi Pearce - Co-Founder of Sweat | The Founder Who Sold for $400M Says Most Business Advice Is Worthless

May 17, 2026·1h 11m
Episode Description from the Publisher

➡️ Join 321,000 people who read my free weekly newsletter: https://newsletter.scottdclary.com ➡️ Like The Podcast? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory Tobi Pearce is an Australian entrepreneur and co-founder of Sweat, one of the world’s most downloaded fitness apps. He built it alongside Kayla Itsines starting in his early twenties, scaled it to tens of millions of users across 150+ countries, and sold to iFIT Health & Fitness in 2021 for roughly $400 million. Pearce did it with a lean, data-driven approach that leaned on community and digital distribution over traditional marketing. He’s known for dismissing conventional business advice as generic and context-free. Post-exit, he’s focused on investing, mentoring early-stage founders, and sharing unfiltered takes on what building and scaling actually looks like. ➡️ Show Links https://www.instagram.com/tobi_pearce/  https://x.com/tobi_pearce11  https://au.linkedin.com/in/tobi-pearce-251918b1  ➡️ Podcast Sponsors Hubspot - https://hubspot.com/   Huel - https://huel.com/scott (Code: scott) iDigress Podcast - https://www.idigress.fm/  Odoo - https://www.odoo.com  NetSuite - https://netsuite.com/scottclary/  Indeed - https://indeed.com/clary Framer - https://framer.com/design (Code: SuccessStory) LinkedIn Ads - https://linkedin.com/scottclary  Priori - https://priori.life/  Mars Men - https://mengotomars.com/  Granola - https://www.granola.ai/success  Upwork - https://upwork.com/  Xero - https://www.xero.com  Dell - dell.com/dell-pro  AutoPilot - https://www.joinautopilot.com/landing  ➡️ Talking Points 00:00 – Intro 01:25 – Why Most Business Advice Fails 03:27 – Where Real Advice Comes From 07:57 – Stories Aren’t the Lesson 10:45 – Why Thinking Beats Tactics 23:15 – Selling a Company for $400M 24:52 – Sponsor Break 26:49 – How to Sell Your Company Right 29:47 – Was $400M the Right Move? 31:15 – Sell or Step Back? 39:43 – A Founder’s Decision Framework 42:29 – The Mindset Shift 43:44 – Hiring A-Players 51:02 – Sponsor Break 53:13 – Can A-Players Hurt Culture? 1:01:04 – Tobi’s Best Mental Models 1:10:50 – Advice to His 20-Year-Old Self

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